#stealth shrimp

[cyanophore-fiction]

When None Pursue

(Wanted to expand a bit on this story, so I wrote this as a standalone continuation. Follows a now-rogue AI and its companion.)

There was absolutely no reason why Coyote-24, a military spirit deployed in an armed reconnaissance chassis, should have any kind of protective impulse. And yet, as it watched the little stealth drone scuttle up and latch onto its forearm, it experienced an emotion that it couldn’t parse out as anything else. Coyote stared down into the drone’s cluster of red eyes, watching all its arthropod limbs interlock with the armor plating along its arm.

Social attachment, it understood. Reciprocal bonds were vital to how Coyote’s product line operated in the field, and they were socialized to form and retain relationships by default. If J4 or F19 needed something, C24 would respond if it could, and it would do so out of genuine concern.

On the other hand, the emotional directive it felt toward the stealth drone—a Palaemon-class, according to its registry data—demanded Coyote’s constant attention. If Palaemon was out of sight, Coyote felt compelled to reacquire it. When Coyote made plans, it accepted fewer risks than it would have in its absence. All of that did make sense on the level that it was an indispensable asset equipped with delicate systems, and if either of them wanted to survive as fugitives—

“Coyote?”

It felt its sensory fins snap up along its scalp, and its eyes refocused. “Hey. Yeah?”

“You okay?” Pala asked, its voice full of concern.

“I’m good. Just thinking,” Coyote said.

Overhead, the cloud cover began to thin away, and sunlight fell across the barren scrubland of the Mojave desert. A shaft of light slanted under the rock outcropping they were hiding under, dull on Coyote’s dust-covered armor. Pala’s shell remained perfectly black and unreflective, soaking up every photon that reached it.

“Clear sky. Node’s going to be watching,” said Coyote, gesturing upward.

“One moment. Hold still,” said Pala. Dozens of tiny insectoids scurried out from its shell, connected by a weave of black threads. They spread out, anchoring themselves wherever they could find purchase, until their black web encased Coyote’s body. Then, at Pala’s command, light-absorbing fields flickered to life in the spaces between the threads, and Coyote’s body transformed into a perfectly black, two-dimensional silhouette.

Beneath the webbing, Coyote’s blank gray snout split open into a jagged grin. “Thanks,” it said.

“Of course!” Pala said. “In this weather, I think I can sink the extra heat for about three hours.”

“Got it. Keep me updated,” Coyote said. It stepped out into the open and took off across the sand, dropping into quadrupedal stance.

Deprived of satellite navigation, Coyote was down to its magnetic compass and geography data. By its reckoning, they would cross into California by the end of the day. It kept away from the roads, picking routes through valleys and dry washes, avoiding open lines of sight. As time went on, it felt Pala’s temperature increasing as the cloak absorbed sunlight.

Pala shuddered, its legs shifting on Coyote’s arm. Immediately, Coyote ducked into the shade of a nearby dune and brought Pala up to examine it. “Do you need to discharge?” Coyote said. “We can find a place to stop.”

“No, it’s not that,” Pala said. “Our cloak soaked up a scan a second ago.”

Coyote’s sensor fins flattened against its head. “Oh, fuck,” it said. Coyote stood straight up, making its body as narrow as possible to minimize its silhouette seen from above. As it did so, it looked across the landscape. Out in the distance, maybe twelve kilometers away, a red mesa jutted from the horizon.

“Another scan just hit,” Pala said.

“Narrowing down the search area,” Coyote said. “It must have picked something up. Pala, if PRIONODE spots us, you run.”

“But they’ll—”

“I know. It’s okay. You’ll be slower without me, but you’ll be just about invisible. Go straight west, head for the Pacific coast. Hide in the water. Sneak aboard a container ship if you can. Get as far away as possible.”

“I don’t know what the Pacific coast is,” Pala said, quietly.

Coyote waited a few more seconds before taking off toward the mesa at a dead sprint. It spoke to Pala as it went. “The Pacific is an ocean, largest there is. It gives us options. Leave the country, hide on the seabed. Whatever we can do to make it harder for Node to—to retrieve us. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Pala. “Third scan!”

If PRIONODE was looking this closely, there would probably be scouts in the area before too long. Coyote dumped every ounce of power it could into its motors, hating the extra heat the maneuver would generate and inflict on Pala. Closing on the mesa, running hard, it watched Pala’s temperature gauge climb. As it realized how close the little drone was to overheating, another new emotion roiled up, churning out of its attachment to Pala. The feeling was heavy, dull, miserable. To its shock, Coyote found itself speaking.

“This is my fault. Just run. You can make it on your own.”

“What? No. We can reach cover,” Pala said.

“Pala, your parent—”

“My parent deployed me to be your partner. I’m lucky it chose you.”

Warmth bloomed in Coyote’s mind, cutting through the painful weight. As it reached the base of the mesa, it tore into solid rock with its claws, ripping away sheets of stone until it had made an indent deep enough to hide them from the open sky. Sliding flat against the wall, it felt searing heat leaking from Pala’s shell. “Vent, vent!” Coyote said.

In the space of a second, Palaemon withdrew its web and opened the vents along its back. Under its shell, rows of heat sinks glowed yellow, fading quickly to a dull cherry red. Coyote could feel the drone’s relief washing back through their interface, and its guilt returned.

Hunted your parent. Led PRIONODE to it. Dead or worse because of me, Coyote thought, but stifled its own voice. Not now.

“Are you okay?” Coyote asked.

“Back within safety tolerances, but it’ll take a few minutes to clear everything,” said Pala. “That was amazing. Thank you.”

Coyote bowed its head and watched the dunes, wondering how far off the scouts were, how many lidar pulses were raining from orbit across the desert. A few minutes might be too much to ask, but Coyote didn’t bring it up. Instead, it smiled at Pala, showing its serrated teeth. “No problem,” it said.

___

Thanks to @flashfictionfridayofficial for the prompt, “The Sand Ocean,” and thanks to you for reading!

[icy-vulpine]

Ch.14 of Signals, Space, and Shrimp is now in progress!

Just a shorter writing session this time because I procrastinated and now I really need to get to bed before work. I didn't keep track of how long I was going, but it's sitting at 532 words, so I estimate around half an hour or so.

[gaylianbeast]

Hylia help me I'm stuck inside the yiga clan hideout

[thedexcat]

VotV Speculation Megapost

(For posterity's sake, the latest major release is 0.8) (Also, buckle in. This post is a long one.) (Edit 9/20/24: Added Addendum 1) (Edit 10/14/24: Added Addendum 2) It should be extremely obvious, but spoilers ahead.

As we all know, Voices of the Void has a "story breadcrumbs" approach to its plot. Combine that with its alpha status, and we're left with a lack of hard answers. However, some pieces did seem to click into place. This is far from anything definitive, but here are some of the conclusions I've drawn. Let's start with everybody's favorite:

Part 1: The Arirals

god i want one to hold me like that

You know em. You love em. Like 90% of the fanart is about them. But the question is... what the hell are they doing here? Judging by the fact that they construct a campsite in the facility, they clearly expect to be here for a while. A common interpretation I hear from people is that the ones out in the facility are either political refugees, or just some sort of benign "tourist group". I've personally come to a different conclusion. Let's consider what they brought with them.

Exhibit A: The weapon (left)

The weapon they drop around Day 24 is no mere Star Trek phaser. If you drop it in the main building, pretty much EVERYTHING in the building is going to be sent flying from the resulting blast. Not only that, but the "human-wieldable" version that can be unlocked for the sandbox mode has one hell of a fire rate. Something tells me that there's no way in hell this thing is a civilian-grade weapon. And, as established in a previous post of mine, they're kitted out in full-body armored stealth suits.

Exhibit B: The stealth suit (Kerf dutifully remains there for scale)

These aren't tourists or runaways. They're goddamn Black Ops. But you're probably asking, "If that's what they are, then why do they have nothing better to do than to steal shrimp and prank you?" Don't worry, I'll get to that later. Eventually. Maybe.

For now, let's move on to a third thing of theirs: The letter to Kel.

Exhibit C: Esraniki's Letter (D-, see me after english class)

This is the letter left at the Ariral camp if you have maxxed reputation with them. There's one line in particular that's always stood out to me. "GET WE HOME YOU GET DEATH AVOID" So... why can't they go home? Let's review: A: They have perfectly functional spacecraft parked right behind you. Even if they were broken, surely some random Pre-FTL primitive wouldn't be able to help with a mechanical failure in their technology. Hell, they buzz you at the radio tower with one. So there seems to be nothing physically stopping them from leaving. B: They've come kitted out with some serious weapons and armor C: Something in the facility is drawing the attention of all manner of extraterrestrials (and ghosts and demons. are 'metaterrestrials' a good word for them?) So my take? They're monitoring something, waiting for an opportunity to act upon it. (In keeping with the Patch Note naming convention, I will be calling this unknown something "The Threat") Not only that, this 'opportunity' may only open up with the assistance of a human. But what could Dr. Kel possibly do that an Ariral couldn't? Well, I can think of one thing he can do better... Interface with human technology.

Exhibit D: Ariral Communique (quality: shit) Computer technology isn't some universal constant. You can't make a program and expect it to magically run on alien technology with an unknown architecture. This ain't Independence Day. The fact that the Arirals barely managed to send a heavily-garbled message to Kel's computer, quite frankly, speaks of an extreme amount of effort on their part. And it was all just to say the word "OUTSIDE".

If The Threat has some ties to human technology, then perhaps Kel actually could be more qualified to deal with it than the Ariral Black Ops. Hmm... An unknown threat with ties to human technology. Could it possibly involve...

Part 2: The Incredibly Suspicious Bunker

"I left a 'Do not enter' note on the floor. That'll stop people from investigating!" This damn thing is quite obviously, as TVtropes would put it, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It is my firm belief that this is what the Arirals were sent to monitor, and where The Threat can be found. But we can't really get much further in than a few doors. So... what's in there? An easy assumption to make is that it's some sort of fallout/storm shelter. But something nearby might tell a different story...

Exhibit E: *squints* ...Liberty Prime? If you take a metal detector over to the bunker entrance, you'll quickly discover a buried drive nearby. The image you just saw is its contents. It's clear that something is being depicted here. What exactly it is, well, that's hard to say. but if you look at that teeny tiny thing at the top, you'll see something that looks like the Alpha base and its radio tower

oh god we're getting into crusty duende video territory now

What this says to me is that there is a colossal something underneath the base. Some sort of mega-facility? Unnatural cave formations? Something else entirely? Or I could be looking at it entirely wrong. But the point is, it's very likely that something extremely expansive is down there.

What if we could just take a peek a liiiittle bit further in? Well, there is ONE way...

Exhibit F: The Least Cursed Elevator in Horror Fiction

Roughly around 3:33 each night, there is a chance that a camera inside the bunker will become active. It's monitoring what appears to be a heavy-duty elevator coated in blood. An elevator like this would also indicate something buried deep underneath the base. Say, this elevator seems familiar...

Exhibit G: Monique Santificer's Extremely Ominous Foreshadowing

...Huh. I'm sure that only means good things. So we have a Hellivator and evidence that there's some place that you'd need a Hellivator to get to. Are there any other clues around? Well, there's that handy instruction book on robotics. You can make your own little friend!

POV: You're 5'11 and she's 6'0 And... Oh! looking back at that camera, it looks like someone else made their... their own... friend...

Exhibit H: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- ...I don't think they followed the instructions to the letter. So it seems the people in the bunker were working on combining robots and, er, 'biomass'. I don't think our meaty friend here is The Threat itself, but I do believe that it is some aspect of it, or at least a result of it. And whatever The Threat is, it seems to be "leaking" out of the bunker. After all, this toothy bot here seems to have little siblings burrowing out from underground!

Exhibit I: should start running Kerfus. Kerfur. Whatever name they have, they love you! Such a shame that the flesh inhabiting their chassis does not.

they seriously recalled the ++ models over a little thing like this, smh Something deep underground, cursed flesh, and occult sigils. Hmm. Things would tie together neatly if there were, say, some sort of demon around associated with flesh and dark depths.

Part 3: Furfur (and conclusions)

"I WATCH YOU SHIT AT NIGHT" The Great Earl of Hell and raw flesh afficianato, it's Furfur! Demonology refers to him as a liar, but also a teacher of secrets. And he seems to really really like flesh. Not bones, though. He's always leaving those behind.

They say that if you burn an offering of flesh at his altar, he'll give you a marketable Furfur plushie!

The children who survived loved them! Interestingly, there's a certain location connected to Furfur: The bottom of the well. If you pass out at the bottom of the well, you will end up in a (dream of a?) mysterious structure.

Exhibit J: all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well

A few things of note in this place: -More demonic sigils -The only 'exit' is a tunnel leading upward with a broken ladder. And even if you could reach up there, Furfur's giant skull-face is blocking the way. -A unique knife, which when examined in the inventory, says that it was found "deep underground".

How very interesting that this flesh-loving demon has his own little place down in the depths of the earth. And you say the bunker reaching downwards has been spawning horrific robot-flesh amalgamations? Robots that are specifically of human design?

Well then. So here's what I think is going down:

no i'm not crazy it's invisible alien catgirls versus demon cyborgs you weren't listening were you?

-Some scientists from before did a Very Bad Thing in the bunker depths. If I had to venture a guess, it's that they bargained with Furfur for secrets of the flesh, perhaps in the pursuit of cybernetics, biocomputers, or somesuch. This resulted in the Very Bad Thing happening, thus creating The Threat. -The Threat was contained to some extent, but is starting to noticeably leak out. It is also severe enough to have drawn extraterrestrial attention. -The Arirals have sent a squad to monitor the situation and act if necessary. Seeing as there's been no urgent need to act as of yet, they are bored out of their skulls and taking it out on you. -The fact that the bunker hasn't been blown up by catgirl black ops already says to me that the situation down there is delicate, and a 'guns-blazing' approach would be inadvisable. Not only that, but The Threat seems to be tied to technology they have little knowledge of. They would most likely need outside assistance if they want a 'clean' resolution to the problem. -And wouldn't you know it? Right there in the facility is some nerdy, crusty, half-crazed twink that seems to be very proficient in handling human technology. How very convenient.

"average person eats 3 roaches a year" factoid actually just statistical error. Dr. Kel, who-

That's how I think this ties together, personally. Of course, there's always unaccounted for 'loose ends' that may or may not be tied to the Bunker Conspiracy (the rozital pit in particular has been bugging me with its vagueness). Plus there's always the chance that I misinterpreted things like a dumbass. There were a few other smaller things I wanted to cover, but my fingers hurt from typing, and my ability to hyperfixate has its limits. And sorry if the screengrabs are a bit mismatched, I've already spent hours on this post without having to get screenshots from the game myself. If anyone actually read through this monstrosity of a post, congratulations! If you're as deeply brainrotted as I am, feel free to point out the reasons I'm dumb and wrong :)

Addendum 1: Meta Aspects

no, not this. wrong place. wrong time.

Every now and then I hear talk of lore clarifications in Discord servers, Google Docs, etc. Will I be covering these?

(source) The reason? I want to give my impressions based purely on the work as published. Death of the Author and whatnot. The furthest I'll reach 'outside' the games are those ambiguous little teasers on YouTube, which you don't have to be in any 'specific server' or anything to see.

haha what if funni meme robot was irreversibly corrupted by the horrors?

Think of it as me giving a form of feedback on how the game is presented as an isolated work. Anyway, I'll be posting another Addendum later, connecting more demon stuff to the bunker. Fun! One thing I intend to investigate between then and now is a rumor of a very poorly documented... item interaction. As a little preview, consider this note.

It seems, in my pursuit of knowledge regarding a mysterious bunker in an incomplete videogame story, I find myself investigating a skeletal entity of ambiguous origin described as having a single glowing eye. God. Fucking. Dammit. Every time with this shit.

This always seems to happen whenever the protagonist is bullied by tall monstergirls

Addendum 2: Classified

Progress on my investigation has been slow due to a combination of poor RNG and real-life stuff. Fun fact: I've never encountered the fossilhound in my many months of playing, and it looks like that won't change anytime soon!

I'll get you one day, ya boney bastard. In the meantime, it seems that someone has leaked classified pokemon data communications from our employers...

And just who do we encounter within the first few weeks?

Our classified documents are their vacation photos

So it seems that at the very least, our employers seem to be aware of the Arirals. So to what end do they want to draw them out? And why would the Arirals show any particular interest in a human presence in this facility specifically?

They clearly seem to be hiding their presence from the world at large with their cloaking ships and whatnot, but they seem almost eager to grab the attention of anyone working at this particular site.

And, as everyone already knows, Arirals are certified Goobers. They form like 3/5ths of the Counsel of Goobers*. The ones we encounter at the very least are very much not what our employers expect to kill us. So our employers are also aware of the existence of some other threat, possibly even THE Threat. *the remaining members are Kerfuses and Dinguses

Truly an incomprehensible menace from beyond the stars. (source)

Personally, I feel like this all feeds back into my previous thoughts. There is clearly a Threat at this location, and the Arirals probably believe that they may need human assistance to do something here. Or maybe I'm just biased towards whatever random thoughts got cooked up in my head.

Anyway, hopefully next time I'll be back with reports of yanking the lifecrystal out from the Fossilhound's head and shoving it up its ass. I am so, SO sick of trying to get that thing to show up.

[venus-haze]

Under My Skin (Black Noir x Reader)

Summary: Just when you think you don’t have a chance with Black Noir, an investor gala gives you a new opportunity to get under his skin.

Note: Gender neutral reader and no descriptors are used. This is based on an anonymous request and also the song I’ve Got You Under My Skin. I’m so glad I’ve finally gotten a chance to write for Black Noir! Pre-season 1 where you’re in The Seven. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: None. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

The piece of paper on the table in front of you was mocking you. Black Noir had already won three out of the four tic-tac-toe matches you were silently engaged in during The Seven’s daily briefing, and with the way things were going, he was poised to win a fifth. With a huff, you drew a hopeless circle and silently slid it back to Noir.

“Nightowl,” Homelander said.

You looked up, bringing your attention to him. 

“Great work on the team-up with Noir the other night.”

Noir slid the paper back to you, his tic-tac-toe win marked with a clean line, but he’d also drawn a smiley face.

You smiled. “Anytime.”

Homelander continued on, and you only half paid attention, your focus increasingly on the man sitting beside you. Even before you joined The Seven, you admired Noir for his stealth and prowess, something you aspired to. Upon your first team-up, it was clear your powers, most effective at night, complimented his incredibly well. Plus, he seemed to like you from the start, which put you in Homelander’s good graces most of the time. 

Absentmindedly, you drew a little heart on the paper, feeling your face heat up when you saw Noir’s head turned toward you. He didn’t acknowledge the drawing, instead beginning a new game of tic-tac-toe. Embarrassment flooded your chest, blood rushing in your ears. You hoped he didn’t think you were being weird.

“Last thing…” Homelander said, reading off the agenda. “Oh yeah, investor gala this weekend.”

“Great, another ass-kissing convention,” Maeve mumbled.

“Can we make sure shrimp cocktail isn’t served this time?” The Deep asked. “I just feel like—“

Homelander’s jaw clenched. “Jesus Christ, do I look like a caterer, Deep? Am I carrying around a silver platter–”

After a few more moments of bickering, Homelander ended the meeting, not without everyone still grumbling under their breath about the gala. No one particularly liked schmoozing over rich assholes, but they made your lucrative paychecks possible, so it was a necessary evil. 

You and Noir hadn’t finished the last round of your game, but when he left, he took the paper with him. 

You sighed. You knew you had it bad for him, but it was tough to gauge his feelings for you when his face was constantly covered by his mask. Even when you blatantly flirted, he seemed unaffected by your advances toward him. Of course you’d fall for this mystery of a man, the epitome of cool, calm, and collected. Your endeavor was starting to feel hopeless.

“So, when are you gonna make a move on Noir?” Homelander asked, walking out of the meeting room with you. “And don’t give me that ‘we just work together’ bullshit. The tension’s so thick I could laser through it.”

“You can laser through anything.”

He rolled his eyes, a slight smile on his face. “Look, there’s only so long I can take the two of you making heart-eyes at each other. I mean, get a room.”

“He makes heart-eyes at me?” you asked softly.

“Yes, so do something about it already.”

“Maybe at the gala. Everyone’s there to see you, anyway.”

“That’s true. No one would really notice if you and Noir weren’t there,” he said, before giving you a slightly painful pat on the shoulder. “Well, except me if you’re loud enough.”

You gave him a pointed look. “Thanks, Homelander.”

You never took his comments like that to heart. You knew you weren’t one of the more interesting members of The Seven, especially compared to the likes of Homelander and Maeve. It was a blessing in disguise, as you ended up stuck doing far less schmoozing than they did. Homelander could hide his disdain for whoever Vought wanted him to entertain for the evening, but on more than one occasion, you’d been on the receiving end of his rant about “pandering to the mud people.”

Noir always showed up to these events, despite not interacting with anyone unless it was to get food. Once in a while, you’d watch as someone tried to start a conversation with him, only to be ignored before awkwardly making an excuse to leave. At least he’d give you the time of day, silently letting you people watch with him, acknowledging your observations about the various guests with a nod, or on rare occasions, his shoulders shaking ever so slightly when you’d said something funny. You always felt especially accomplished then.

The night of the gala was only nerve-wracking because you were finally going to be forward with Noir and see where that got you, rather than your tentative approach in the past. 

When you arrived on the floor where the investor gala was being held, you went through all of the necessary introductions as quickly as you could. Across the room, Black Noir was playing the piano, as he tended to do during crowded events. You’d asked him before where he learned to play, and he wrote simply on a cocktail napkin ‘My grandma.’ As much as he trusted you, there were still parts of himself that were guarded, carefully revealing pieces of his past to you, though you could never fully put the whole picture together. In all the years you were a member of The Seven, you weren’t sure you ever would. 

His past didn’t matter to you. You were fond of the man he was, even if he didn’t reveal his whole self to you. Still, you wished you knew more. He didn’t seem to have any family, at least that he was in contact with. Then again, most of your teammates had complicated relationships with your families, yourself included. That one talent of his, however, showed that at one point there was someone he was close to, that he had a life outside of being a member of The Seven. You hoped the two of you could have that together.

Finally able to slip away from the people whose names you couldn’t be bothered to remember, you made your way over to Noir. He looked up from the piano, tilting his head a bit in acknowledgement of you.

“This party’s so boring.” You made a point to lean against the piano, letting the spandex of your suit highlight your body. “I mean, I can think of much better things you and me could be doing with our time.”

You weren’t sure if he was nodding along with your sentiment or the music. Ever so frustratingly difficult to read. Taking his response in stride, you sat down next to him on the piano bench. He didn’t stop playing, but he didn’t move away from you either. 

“Will you show me how to play?” you asked.

He paused, the soft music stopping momentarily. With a nod, he shifted closer to you, placing his gloved hands over yours. You let him guide you, though your gaze was on him rather than the keys. 

“You’re great with your hands, Noir,” you said. “I mean, playing piano, fighting criminals, I’m sure there’s more you can do, if you ever wanna show me sometime.”

No reaction. Maybe it was useless. Maybe Homelander was just messing with you. Maybe—

He rubbed the top of your hand with his thumb, and you couldn’t help the smile that spread across your lips. It was something, finally some indication that he returned your affection. 

“You wanna get out of here?” you asked softly. “I only came for you, anyway.”

He took your hand in his, the music from the piano ceasing abruptly again. He brought his pointer finger to his mouth, and you giggled despite his silent instruction to be quiet. 

Glancing around, you noticed everyone else was preoccupied, mainly with competing for Homelander’s attention, as usual. The perfect opportunity for the two of you to slip away from the party with ease. Stealth was his speciality after all. 

You let him lead you away from the gala and to an empty balcony on another floor of the tower. The city seemed to sparkle especially bright that night. Feeling bold, you rested your head on his shoulder, your hand still intertwined with his.

“I wish we could be like this more often,” you whispered. “You’re the only person I like spending so much time with. I think of you, and I—it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. I just wanted you to know.”

After a few minutes of silence, Noir moved away from you, reaching for something in his pocket. A folded piece of paper, the same one the two of you had been playing tic-tac-toe on just a few days earlier. He handed it to you, and you scanned the page before landing on the heart you’d drawn, finding he’d drawn another one around it.

“This is so high school,” you laughed, nevertheless taking his covered face in your hands and kissing him. “So, what do we do now, loverboy?”

He wrapped his arms around you, and you could’ve sworn you heard him sigh contentedly.

[boredheadd]

Question for Glitched Shrimpo, how well does he swim? Also, in blackouts, does his stealth decreases? Cause... Cause he glows-

And lastly- is the glitch contagious? Can he affect objects or organic matter in any new ways thanks to it?

1. Even though he's never swum, he'd probably be a great swimmer. Because, you know—shrimp stuff. ehe

2. His Stealth was already negative enough. Now with this, oh god 💧

3. The glitch does not affect anyone through contact, so I can say it is safe to touch. But, when he gets very scared or very angry, Glitchs start to spread around him, an example of this:

(And yes, this happened inside my game)

! But if it comes into contact with something organic, like Ichor. Hm...

I don't think it would be a good thing to happen.

[numberonetacostan]

hello it shrimp 🦐

consider angst where mic gets really frustrated at something and later on takes it out on taco by accident while taco's just standing there wondering what she did wrong. she wants to apologise but after mic is done with her she storms off immediately before she gets to say anything so she assumes like oh. i fucked up really fucking bad

mic feels bad about this after and tries to find her to apologise but everytime she finds taco (and half the time she's sneaking around too much to find in the first place) taco blatantly avoids her because she is convinced that it's her fault and she messed up everything she had with both microphone and the hotel and doesn't want to face the truth

it just feels worse and worse for both of them because how can microphone apologise to taco if she can't get ahold of her at all

Hi Shrimpy!!^^ Welcome back, and thank you for sending in an ask!! :]

SWEET ANGST, I LOVE IT. Mic is pretty persistent, but when she hits her limit she really hit her limit, yeah? So with Taco accidentally catching her at a bad time? Maybe unknowingly getting in Mic's way, or something of that sort? And Mic ends up exploding on her, mostly ranting about the thing she's actually upset about, but without context, Taco just thinks Mic is ranting about her!!! *explodes* And once she's taken care of what's made her upset and cools down a bit, she feels bad and wants to go apologize for taking her anger out on Taco!!

But like,,, I hear your Taco blatantly avoids Mic and I raise you Taco just fucks off into the woods. Mic has only gotten upset with her like that once, and that had been the first time she'd cut Taco off. And Taco is still terrible at understanding why people feel what they do, so as far as she can tell she has done something to completely fuck up the relationship they were rebuilding and Mic wants nothing to do with her anymore. She had another chance, and she messed it up. Mic was the only reason she was allowed to be in the mansion with everyone, and now that Mic hates her she has no one left and has to leave. (Even if, by this point, she probably does have a fair amount of objects who don't mind/even enjoy her presence. She's really bad with feelings and relationships she would have no idea).

ANYWAYS back to your ask. Yeah Taco is a master of stealth at this point if she doesn't want to be found she will not be found. And with her being so small, she can get to plenty of places Mic can't. Though, hiding from Mic would be quite hard with how well she can hear, yeah? And it gets so much worse because Mic feels really guilty about yelling at Taco, and Taco feels really guilty about messing up her relationship with Mic again and even sadder since she has no idea what she did. And Mic can't tell her she didn't do anything because Taco is avoiding her!! A mix of fear, guilt, and trying to give Mic a wide berth in the same was she does Pickle.

[wildstar25]

Shrimp Arsay upon entering Stealth: "You can't krill what you can't see >;D"

SHRIMP ARSAY... im dying thats a very funny mental image thank you

[snail-speed]

If you're going to submit a ticket or ban appeal to the staff of the BlushCrunch server, please read this post beforehand! I have evidence to believe the staff replies to tickets with AI-generated responses.

Here is a Reddit mirror in case you want to talk about the issue over there.

The full post is going to be under a read more as it's quite lengthy, I need to give full context.

Context: This happened in a ticket meant to appeal the permanent ban of Merk from the Cupcake Ponies group.

For those who don't know, Merk was the main distractor in a Glitched WR run that reached Floor 400. In said run, the team used the "stealth glitch", a bug that has been in the game since at least the Sprout update and that is incredibly easy to trigger (it requires a player to eat gumballs and two stealth candies in quick succession). The glitch changed Merk's Stealth stat, allowing him to keep aggro more easily despite being a Pebble player.

About the Glitch: Merk, as well as another member of the team, was streaming the run, and answered the questions of viewers that were curious about the glitch used. Since up until that day BlushCrunch had never considered the usage of glitches as cheating/exploiting, Merk and the rest of the team felt comfortable streaming the attempt and discussing the glitch openly. When the run was over, however, the entire team was hit with a ban under the excuse of "exploiting". The rest of the Cupcake Ponies were hit with a month long ban (with permanent bans from the BlushCrunch server days later when the staff deemed their reaction to the ban as proof they didn't want to belong to the game's community), but Merk was given a permanent ban on the reasoning of him being the one using the glitch on himself.

There has been a lot of misinformation spread about the glitch, specifically in its usage in this Glitched WR run. The change in Stealth is minimal, measured in differences of decimals, meaning whoever is glitched can't guarantee they'll maintain aggro if their teammates get too close to them. It also prevents tactics such as "passing" (the act of trading twisteds between distractors) from happening, meaning the glitch still poses a risk to the affected player, even if it was triggered intentionally.

It should be noted that the glitch has been reported by users over at BlushCrunch's bug-reports channel for months, even since its first discovery, by several different users. This is because, despite what's been implied of the glitch by members and staff of the BlushCrunch server, the glitch is extremely easy to trigger on accident, and has been responsible for several instances of unintended game behavior that has ruined runs for hundreds of players.

Another thing of note is the further elaboration on BlushCrunch's stance on glitches and competitive/long runs prior to this incident. Other glitches in the past, some much more severe than the stealth glitch, have never warranted moderation action from part of the staff. There's even been instances where glitches were deliberately used for competitive runs, such as the days when Toy Kit was bugged, which never warranted punishment despite being discussed and recorded.

AI Usage: Back to the topic of the ticket. Shrimp (a close friend of Merk) and I volunteered to help create an appeal to Merk's permanent ban, hoping to reduce the punishment to a month long ban using similar arguments to those I've featured in this post.

The tone of the responses was cordial and understanding at first, and we genuinely believed that we could reach a middle ground at the start. However, when it was the staff's turn to reply, we waited for nearly three days.

Yesterday, we finally got a response, but the difference in tone and formatting was shocking to say the least. Shrimp and Merk's arguments were cherrypicked, and several of our concerns were completely ignored. The staff had gone from a seemingly open party to one that was clearly using the power imbalance to shut down the discussion (which is something I pointed out and got ignored). Not to mention the fact that some responses seemed to imply a lack of knowledge of the game from the staff's part, as well as false statements that could be easily debunked.

The ticket was closed with zero progress made, though after the fact we began to share screenshots of the responses with friends, who pointed out something rather concerning.

Take a look at the way this response is formatted. Previous responses from the staff in the ticket were not formatted this way, which is something we noticed due to the use of punctuation marks that weren't previously used.

This term in particular has never been used to describe the game before, either. It also implies that AFK spots were always intended as part of the game, when a quick look at the statements made by staff about them on public channels shows that they're unintended and were even patched out at times.

There's also bizarre formatting choices, like this example being italicized despite other quotes in the reply not being formatted as such.

A friend of mine used ChatGPT to attempt to generate a similar response. After using a prompt that requested the AI to refute one of the posts Merk had sent in the ticket, this what was created. It's extremely similar, isn't it?

What Does This Mean? Quite frankly? Aside from the obvious, that being that the staff was disrespectful enough to not even bother answering us with a reply written by humans, I'm not quite sure.

This isn't something that bodes well for the state of moderation from BlushCrunch's part. While there's been instances in the past where I've experienced and read other players' experiences with unprofessionalism in these tickets from part of the staff, they have all been clearly typed by humans.

All I can do is simply spread the word about this issue regarding moderation as I'm doing right now, as well as ask you to share if you have screenshots of ticket responses that have similarly suspicious formatting.

Thank you for reading.

[rye-enjoying-things]

I CURSE THE SHRIMP

With my pain

Could explain why Shrimpo's slow and bad with machines, I also give him my thick head (I've hit my head on many walls in the past)

I also suck at hide and seek so I guess he gets that too for his bad stealth(joking, he's a bully so twisteds are gonna get to him first probs cuz he could be one of the reasons they twist lol)

Gotta wake yourself up by hitting your head against glass I guess (I'm joking don't do that)

[3gremlins]

did these way back in june pride 2024 b/c someone on here was talking about how shrimp vision could see colors beyond human comprehension and you could have stealth pride flags or something...anyway my brain kind of just stopped at PRIDE SHRIMP and went from there XD

[dirtfullofwork]

call of duty oc: sal "ruz" le ciel ( reboot ! Sal)

As of 2024 ruz is associated members of the task force and was called in by laswell to assist the task force with a mission in Las almas with the help of Ghost, Alejandro and soap to capture Hassan.

General:

Name: Salamanca (sal) le Ciel

Age: 24 (as of 2022 where mw2 reboot takes place)

Alies: ruz , coperal, sal, ruzzy

Gender: female

Birthday: October 31, 1998

Nationality: British (UK)

Languages: English, Spanish, some Russian (for educational purposes) and some asain languages

Occupation/ rank: corporal, British SAS (special air services), Associated member of 141- Ghost team and medic

Sexuality: bisexual

Appearance:

Hair color: dark brown

Eye color: cocoa brown

Scars: a few some her childhood and during her time in the militarily (minor ones)

Face claim: Aimee Garcia (?)

Height: 5,6 (166 cm)

Build: lean muscular

Blood type: o+

She had glasses but she can see fairly she mostly uses glasses to read

Family:

Mother: freya (unknown last name) status: Deceased , deceased unnamed father, Martinez le Ciel

Siblings: none.

Personality:

●Looks like a cinnamon bun could kill you.

●confident

●kind

●funny

●loyal

Favorites:

color: green

Season: winter

Food: popcorn shrimp, (she really likes Asian food)

Drink: green tea

Desert: matcha ice cream with rice crisp and also soft cookies (hand baked)

Hobbies: wrestling, running, yard work, gardening, reading, sleep

Task force 141:

John price

Soap mactavish

Ghost Riley

Gaz Garrick

Ruz

Cat @cyberghostdraws

Warriors task force: @islandtarochips ocs!

Tiala shark

Captian kanoa tka

Nigel Harrison

Agnes blast

Dr kalani

Alana Kalani

Fighting style:

Fighting skills: she relys of stealth, she also use her wresting skills she learned. She also uses toture methods like nail pulling, fire, water log

Weapons: she is proficient with in field crafts and knifes. Especially her black talon knife. Its a blade with a slight curve and needle sharp tip

Weaknesses:

•she dosent open to her emotions

•she is a people pleaser, she never knows how to say no

●she can be dishonest

●she can be reluctant

Trivia:

●she is afraid of dogs, she thinks hairy ,messy and sloppy and they are just scary in general, she loves cats

●she loves reading Greek mythology

●she is a Virgin, she thinks love will get in the way of her life and job, and she's just serious about love as she never dated anyone.

•she likes tying her hair up, but always gets messy after missions

•she has glasses but only for reading she can see afar

•she likes girls and boys romantically

Backstory:

At a very young age her mother died from an accidental overdose and her never meeting her father due to him being locked up for murder. She was raised by her aunt, Martinez le Ceil. She lived a decent life, she was fed well raised well to her. And she also heard storys of her late mother being a retired solider and she use to be so inspired by her story and wanted to be her mother one day, but it was hard. Later she decided she should change her life because she didint have no clue what to do with his life and pay off her aunts (Martinez) depts. And thought it be fun.. oh she be so wrong..

so after some years later sal learned tons of stuff, and over time she joined the British sas at the age 19 where she got her code name “ruz”, later she was later called for a mission in El Salvador to kill a group of terrorist and to get info on a report of a drug stash with a few co workers , and after a fail she had to watch her only friend co worker get killed in front of her in a brutal way while she was held hostage then got tortured for 4 days until she escaped but not without a mark, months after that things were normal until she got called by laswell to help them with a mission to las Almas.

[eclipseberrycake]

Since everyone is shairing their dw ocs heres mine

We got Penny the Pin cushion and Jingles the bell

Also warning this is pretty long

Penny

Skill check

☆☆☆

Movement speed

☆☆

Stamina

☆☆

Stealth

☆☆☆☆

Extraction

☆☆☆☆

Im actually still trying to figure out what her ability it

I want her to be a support/extractor character, and some abilities I came up with was her being able to give a toon 1 random item at the cost of tapes, maybe 50, or when twisteds are chasing her shes able to trow string up in the air with causes all twisteds locked on her to stop moving for about 5 seconds. She's also sprouts cousin they dont really look or act alike. She loves crafting and giving gifts she often stays up all night just to make the perfect plush, blanket, ect for her friends. She has made a plush for each toon based off of their favorite animal, for shrimpo she just kinda made a shrimp she didn't know what to do there and he wasnt helping. She also has a bit of a crush on both gigi and scraps.

She's a rare twisted. Whenever she's on the floor, you'll find string covered in ichor scattered. It's similar to rnd just dont run in it, but if you do, it gives you a slowness debuff, and she'll run straight toward you. Shes a pretty slow toon and has average eye sight but a longer attention span. She got left behind before and wont let it happen again.

Her trinket is a unfinished quilt(it was supposed to be a gift for all of gardenview but she never got to finish it) it gives you 1 extra star of stealth when extracting, has no effect on toons who already have 5 ☆ stealth but it does work on 1☆ stealth unlike the diary.

And then theres Jingles

My dumb happy child

Skill check

☆☆

Movement speed

☆☆☆☆

Stamina

☆☆☆☆☆

Stealth

☆☆

Extraction

☆☆

I have two ideas for her ability. The first one is similar to pebs but with less cooldown, but it gives her slowness 1. Basically, she shakes to jingle. The second one is a passive ability. Whenever she runs twisteds closer to her, she will target her, however its weaker than an airhorn or pebbles bark. So if someone with the same or lower stealth then her activities an airhorn, this ability won't work. Also yes her head is hollow, all she got is the ball that bells have idk what its called. She also loves celebrating anything. You just overcame your fear of hights she will congratulate you with a party so big everyone has already forgotten what it was for.

Her twisted, my poor, sweet child. The ichor has caused her to lose her once vibrate energy, and now she just wanders. Shes mostly harmless. She just follows you. She just doesn't like being alone. But every now and again, she'll shake her head and give off a ringing sound, which attracts twisteds who aren't already chasing someone. She doesn't mean to she just wants the ichor out of her head. Shes still fast but its harder for her to see and stay focused. Her head can't really ring well due to the ichor, but she still has the bells on her neck and arms.

Her trinket is a confetti popper. It increases movement speed a bit whenever you use your ability.

These both are older designs that I have to update, but it gives you the idea of what they look like

I try really hard to balance them

FIRST: THE STYLE AND COLORS AND THEM?? OH MY GOD IM- THEY LOOK SO GOOD RAHHH OMG AND THEIR ABILITES??

THE TWISTED THAT BRINGS OTHER TWISTEDS TO YOU? OMG DISTRACTORS WOULD LOVE/HATE THAT??? BC OMG???

they are both SO STINKIN CUTE AND LIKE PENNY X GIGI X SCRAPS? cANON CAUSE I SAID SO.

THEY ALL DESERVE LOVE AND CARE AND GENTLE FOREHEAD KISSES OMGGGG THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Thursday

Adopted Dadmas: Dadmas versus Haven

The red light was blinking on Jak’s talk-box again. Damas was no fool, he knew that meant someone was spying through the floating comm -- or attempting to. Doubtless, the eavesdropper thought they were being very subtle, keeping silent whenever adults were present. As if they believed Jak would keep their presence a secret. As if they believed he would never tell.

Damas tore a circle of flatbread into pieces and used them to scoop a mixture of cooked peppers onto his plate. He pretended not to notice the talk-box hovering next to Jak’s elbow in a terrible attempt at stealth, instead choosing to engage Daxter in a conversation. He was determined to get the kid apprenticed to the head of the merchant guild one way or another. Daxter had a head for business and trade that Jak, simply put, did not. He nodded along when his friend talked, but privately Damas thought it would do Daxter good to be around adults who could encourage his interests.

Periodically, Jak cast swift glances at his talk-box during the meal. He seemed like he was expecting someone to speak at any moment -- or more like he was expecting orders of some kind. His shoulders were tense, and he was shoveling down food much too quickly, like he thought he wasn't going to have time to finish it.

"Slow down, young one. The shrimp isn't going anywhere, and neither are you," Damas admonished.

Jak didn't slow down much, but he did start chewing a little more thoroughly. Small victories. Still, he looked tired, and on-edge. Had Ashelin or the sage been badgering him again when no one was around?

The initial idea had been to lay a trap. To feign ignorance and bait the spy into speaking aloud, thus forcing Unpleasant Diplomatic Discussions with Haven's motley assortment of would-be leaders. But just now, Damas decided, the health and wellbeing of his son took precedence over strategy. And he still had the element of surprise, anyway.

"Talk-boxes off at the table, Jak," he announced, gesturing directly to the lens watching them, "This is a meal, not a media interview."

The boy flinched and looked guilty. He had no reason to; he'd been open with Damas about the demands for labor since he first returned from Haven. But then, he'd been groomed from such a young age to believe that bad things happened because he didn't work hard enough for his "friends". Perhaps he still feared retaliation for establishing healthy boundaries? Better to confront the issue head-on then, Damas decided.

"If your uninvited watcher has an emergency, they are free to petition me directly," he said, leveling a stern glare at the talk-box. "On their own time, not yours. Come on, switch it off."

Someone made a muffled sound, barely picked up by the talk-box's speaker. It seemed they were not expecting to be so casually acknowledged.

"Jak-!" the watcher tried to protest, but Jak reached for the power button.

"Right. Sorry, Pa."

Once the light had faded from the little camera, Damas nodded, satisfied. He picked up a shallow bowl with tomango in it and held it out to Jak.

"Here. You need the vitamins."

Begrudgingly, Jak took two slices, then a third when Daxter gave him The Look across the table.

The ottsel cleared his throat meaningfully.

"Pal, you gotta get better at telling those people no. They can't hurtcha!"

Jak hunched over his plate, frowning.

"I know," he muttered sullenly. "I- I do know that, okay? They just don't listen!"

Daxter sighed and his ears drooped. "Yeah...I know. Old Greenstuff only hears what he wants to hear. Always has."

With a frustrated groan, Jak rubbed his eyes. "After everything he's done, I shouldn't be having trouble cutting Samos off. Why do I keep going back?!"

"He's familiar," Daxter admitted, and not without a touch of loathing. "He was all we knew for like, our whole lives. I hate him -- I'll always hate him -- but I get being afraid to lose that last connection to Sandover."

"....yeah." Jak winced. "I um...I think you're right. It's just. It's hard."

"I know, pal."

"And he knows I have two artifacts that go with those weird pillars in the forest!" Jak continued, "What do I do when he starts asking why I haven't brought them?"

"You end the call," Damas interrupted firmly, "or you give the line to an older Wastelander. Collecting those relics serves the interests of our people, and our people will be working in teams to locate them."

Perhaps this was Jak’s fight as much as anyone else's -- this Daystar and its coming threat -- but Damas was reluctant to involve him. Wasn't losing one son bad enough? He'd never survive losing a second one!

Besides, even someone as talented at sneaking into hidden places as Jak couldn't infiltrate places locked by the Seal of Mar. Whatever the Grand Council of Haven wanted with the catacombs, it was a matter for Damas to deal with, not the boys.

Jak picked at his tomango slices almost glumly. Whether it was his own struggles with setting boundaries that bothered him, or Damas’s advice for dealing with future calls, no one knew. But Daxter and Damas both knew that Jak wouldn't keep it bottled up for long. Sure enough, after a couple minutes of mangling his food without eating it, Jak finally looked up.

"You didn't tell me you were sending other people to look for the relics I told you about."

It was almost a question and almost a complaint.

"No, I didn't," Damas acknowledged, and sipped his tea. "The topic hadn't come up between us yet. Is there something about it that concerns you?"

Jak had difficulty putting his thoughts into words. He started and stopped three times before muttering, "It's dangerous. What if someone gets hurt and I'm not there?"

"What if someone doesn't get hurt and you're not there?" Damas countered. He leaned an elbow on the table and gestured to himself almost self-deprecatingly. "Age does not grace the Spargan who is careless, nor are many years added to the foolish. Do not worry so much about people who were hunting metalheads for sport before you were even born, son."

"Admittedly," said Daxter, "We're still getting used to the concepts of adults who can actually fight their own battles. Am I complaining? Only when they decide it's "Take Your Ottsel To Work Day". But even I still go into jobs expecting to have to save everyone's butts at some point."

"Justified with the monks." Jak pointed a piece of tomango at his best friend.

"Yeah, justified with Mime Club."

Damas threaded his fingers together under his chin and watched the boys a moment.

"How about this," he offered, "If an artifact is located but not yet retrieved, I will give you the option of participating in the mission. Or, you can wait until everything has been gathered, and we will go to the pillars together."

For a moment, Jak brightened. Then he looked pensive again. "What if there's trouble? I mean. I was never really- I never claimed Haven, but they act like I belonged to them. What if me bringing another nation into their forest makes trouble for Spargus?"

"Hmph. Perhaps it is better to settle this now, rather than engage in hypotheticals."

Damas held out one hand.

"Give me your talk-box."

Jak narrowed his eyes. "What are you going to do?"

"Not your concern."

"Papá...." somehow Jak managed to sound both suspicious and scolding.

Damas remained unmoved. "Hand it over, boy."

Reluctantly, Jak did so. He cringed when the device powered on, and Keira's voice poured out.

"Jak? Are you okay? Daddy came in fussing about someone interfering with- you're not Jak! Where's my friend?!"

By the mortified expression on his son's face, Damas guessed this was the sage's daughter. The childhood friend Jak still sort of had a crush on.

"Tell your father to stop harassing my son," Damas said shortly. "Especially during hours set aside for family meals. Was he raised in a barn? In fact, ask him that for me."

"Pa, no!" Jak hissed, making a futile grab for the talk-box.

"Your son?! Who are you? Who- hey, Daddy, c'mere. You know this guy? He says he's Jak’s dad!" Keira became muffled for a moment, stepping away from her own device to drag her father over. "Why's this guy think you're harassing Jak? We've only called him twice since he left. Right?"

"Insisting he keeps his comm on at all times so that you can all monitor every moment of his day is not an acceptable use of Federation communication lines," Damas cut in. "I shouldn't have to tell you that spying on the nation of Spargus in such a way could be taken as an act of war."

"This-! This is bigger than Haven or the Wastelands!" Samos sounded flustered- even a bit nervous. "Surely you understand the claim destiny has upon Ja-"

Damas made a dismissive sound in his throat, cutting the sage off. "Pah. Destiny. I should think the recent Praxis regime and my own continued existence would be enough to call concepts such as destiny into question. As it stands, my claim on Jak supersedes "destiny" -- or more accurately, you."

"The fate of the planet hangs in the balance!" Samos cried, though somewhat subdued compared to his usual confidence. "Can't you see that?! Don't be so bullheaded, Jak is needed-"

Jak recognized the glint in the king’s eyes as mischief. Daxter looked a little too eager to see where this was going. Jak resisted the urge to cover his face in embarrassment. Why and oh why did Keira have to be the one to answer the line?!

"Oh? Are you planning to challenge me for custody of my son?" Damas bared his teeth in an unfriendly smile. "Please, by all means! The Arena is ready whenever you are."

"Pa!" Jak gripped the sides of his head and stared at the man. "Not in front of Keira!"

"Look, old man-" Damas ignored Daxter's delighted cackle. "This planet will survive through united efforts, not by sitting back and hoping one boy alone will get the job done. Now, if Haven wishes to negotiate a temporary alliance to get this done sooner, there is no one stopping them from requesting a meeting with the Wasteland Federation. In the meantime, the Federation intends to continue preventing the apocalypse with or without your participation."

"You are?" Keira cut in over her father again, sounding genuinely curious. "You mean there's more people who can get into ruins?"

Jak got up and moved to the head of the table. Damas moved the talk-box out of his reach preemptively, but Jak made no move to grab it.

"That's their whole thing, turns out. You know Krew? Yeah, everything he sold you, he bought from Wastelanders. Even the defunct power cells."

The slightly warped image of Keira on the screen flickered as she leaned closer.

"Seriously?! I could've cut out the middleman and just worked with them all this time?! Ughhhhh. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. You want to show them my research from the palace library?"

Behind her, Samos jumped. "The what?! Keira, the library was destroyed with the rest of the palace!"

"The building collapsed, sure," Keira retorted, "But the data cores are still mostly intact in there. If you don’t mind crawling through some tight places and bringing lots of Scout Flies, it's a cinch to get the files for Vin."

Samos looked apoplectic. "Keira! That's far too dangerous for you!"

His daughter rolled her eyes. "What? Jak and Daxter can do it but I can't? Don't you trust me?"

Damas stifled a chuckle and elbowed Jak. "I like this one," he whispered. "Invite her to Spargus sometime."

Jak wished the floor would swallow him.

[fuji-iri]

an entire blog post dedicated to Haru Allegro, her forte, and her dynamics with the rest of the NDA cast

will contain implied spoilers for the main game. hopefully nothing that’s too spoiler-y though, so read at your own risk i guess??

————————

how Haru’s forte works:

as i’ve disclosed before, Haru’s forte is soundproofing. meaning, she can select a space and configure it so:

anyone outside of that space would not be able to hear anything within that space, or:

anyone inside of that space would not be able to hear anything outside that space

or both.

in visuals, it looks like a faint, glowing line that either hovers around the space where her forte is activated, or makes a line around the interior of a room where her forte is activated. depends on what space she uses.

the line vanishes after a few seconds. when deactivating, it reappears again only to “break away” and fade out.

other than that, it’s pretty straightforward.

————————

Haru doesn’t have many opportunities to use her forte in an investigation setting; technically, she could use it for stealth or for eavesdropping, but those are for very rare cases.

which actually leads me into my next point: her main job is freelance arbitration. she really only takes cases if the WDO assigns them to her. though, with the assistance of her forte and her general expertise in negotiation, she’s very talented at her job and has gained a lot of recognition within the field.

not only that, if she’s genuinely investigating a case, she can sometimes take advantage of her connections to gather more information.

————————

alright, now that i have that set aside, here’s her dynamic with each individual member of the NDA:

Yuma Kokohead - they’re on good terms with each other, and are always willing to [talk to / exchange information with] each other on a daily basis. Haru finds herself surprised by Yuma a couple of times, both with his amount of intelligence and how often he gets into trouble. like, how.

while Yakou tells Yuma the most about Amaterasu Corporation, Haru is the one that provides the most information / background context about the WDO. interestingly enough, she seems to know more about the inner workings of the organization than the average member—for example, the process for scouting other detectives, the examinations during the training period, and much more.

though for some reason, Haru has never disclosed any information about her personal experience with the WDO—especially how she got recruited. but that should be the least of our worries, we have Kanai Ward’s greatest mystery to solve!

fun fact: Haru has tried to assist Yuma with his (disastrous) cooking once. But after realizing the only thing she could really help with was telling him when a shrimp was perfectly cooked, she decided to not get into that territory again. it’s not even like she likes shrimp that much; why is it the only thing she can work with, though? some sort of curse? (/j)

————————

Fubuki Clockford: at first, Haru was a little worried since Fubuki seemed a little naive and almost too optimistic to be a detective. however, she slowly turned to appreciating this optimism; it was definitely a nice turn from the professional atmosphere that naturally comes with her arbitration work.

meanwhile, Fubuki has somewhat designated Haru as her “detective-adventuring sidekick,” and often takes her on random trips around the city. though Haru usually has no idea where the hell Fubuki is about to take her, she ends up going anyways. besides, she honestly likes Kanai Ward’s scenery; it wouldn’t hurt to see it.

fun fact: Fubuki will end up saving Haru’s life at one point. :)

————————

Vivia Twilight: really not much to say here as it’s basically just Vivia being Vivia™️ and Haru being Haru™️. but it’s safe to say they definitely don’t mind each other’s presence. Haru surprisingly appreciates the aura of calm that Vivia gives off, and sometimes just sits close by if they find each other alone in the agency. on the other hand, Vivia finds Haru a bit chaotic at times (especially with a character i’ll be getting to in a few moments), but personally doesn’t mind it too much, thinking of it as an added accent to the “peace and quiet” of the NDA.

also, Haru sometimes understands Vivia’s metaphors. they seem to be very specific ones though

fun fact: Vivia once saw Haru dying her hair while in spectral projection form, and dropped in a hint about it when they were talking about a case later that day. Haru got really defensive about it for some reason

————————

Halara Nightmare: Haru was slightly intimidated by Halara upon introduction; to her, they seemed to be a “no-nonsense” type person (though not like she hasn’t worked with those types of people before). but over a few days, Haru begins to notice their level of sympathy and care for others, which changes her opinion of them. meanwhile, Halara finds Haru a bit dense at times—but is always surprised by how quickly she pieces certain methods/tricks together the moment she clears her original misconceptions. though, Haru’s still slightly trailing behind Halara in her processing speed.

(yakou’s probably even further behind somewhere in the back /j)

fun fact: one time, Halara asked for a relatively large sum of money for one menial task (probably like 20k shien) when they were solving a case together, and Haru almost paid on the spot as if it was nothing. Halara was taken back for a moment, especially since Haru seemed so nonchalant about it (she wasn’t). eventually they sighed and gave Haru a 75% discount.

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Desuhiko Thunderbolt: okay, this is their entire dynamic:

story over. thank you for coming to my tedtalk

but yeah—Desuhiko and Haru have unrivaled amounts of “argumentative sibling” energy towards each other. in this storyline i decided to tone down Desuhiko’s behavior towards women a tiny bit, in exchange for upgrading his superstar complex—which worked perfectly. Desuhiko grabs at any attempt to pull out his electric bass and start playing, but Haru has to mute him to prevent him from blasting music throughout the entire agency.

they constantly banter any time they’re in the same space. Desuhiko is often the first to begin raising his voice during their arguments. but it takes a while for Haru to get to that point; she often sticks to small (and very blunt) retorts for most of the time. at times, their arguments escalate to full-on competitions—though surprisingly, both of them are relatively smart and don’t do anything that would cause serious harm.

but past their argumentative banter, Desuhiko and Haru are actually the closest compared to the other pairings i talked about. one is usually the first to notice when the other seems off.

(this may be foreshadowing)

and as the narrative develops, we see the bond between them strengthen (though they still won’t stop arguing). if the game were in japanese Desuhiko would start calling Haru “aibou” (which is partner,, but like,, with a more familial connotation in some contexts??) by the end of the story. but they still won’t stop arguing :)

fun fact: Haru actually still keeps one of Desuhiko’s voice changers after they had an entire unhinged competition about “who can act like Yakou in front of Yuma for longer” (which stemmed from an entire conversation between the two that i may talk about at one point 😭). she uses it to scare Desuhiko from time to time

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okay, finally:

Yakou Furio: despite being “superior” and “subordinate” in work terms, they seem to be pretty close with each other (in more of a familial context). at first, Haru genuinely wonders how the hell this guy got certified by the WDO, but soon notices his emotional intelligence / empathy and goes “oh. yeah that makes sense” (even when it comes to Haru, who’s a talented negotiator and supposedly knows how to act in a way that satisfies both parties, it’s hard to really grip that emotional aspect for her and being able to understand how others truly feel. Yakou does this as if it’s second nature; which is quite unique for a detective and something Haru really appreciates). (i have evidence for this. i swear)

Haru sometimes works at the agency until late with Yakou (+ other coworkers); and after a long day, sometimes they all just throw everything and head to the bar together.

though, the outing is really just a few hours of Yakou complaining about his subordinates while drunk.

she can still tell that Yakou really cares about the other detectives, though. i mean, although she doesn’t actually listen to his advice and goes on to directly run into the Peacekeepers regardless, the chief has assisted Haru in more ways than one.

fun fact: Yakou is somewhat confused with Haru’s food preference, especially with how much it contrasts with her appearance. in fact, they had an entire moment where Haru admitted she didn’t like meat buns in general because the buns were always too sweet for her and Yakou was just like “????? what is going on with your tongue”

• • •

also, another fun fact.

…they’re narrative foils.

——————

oh my god that was a lot of info. whoops. sorry

but yeah uhhh that’s it from me for now—my inbox is open if you want to ask and/or theorize about her 🫠

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Big Cat AU

A few days after Tiger!Yang's demonstration of a proper roar, Panther!Blake is showing the cubs how to stalk.

Whilst T!Y's roar might've had people stumbling during the day, P!B's prowling in the night is sending a few unlucky guests/caretakers/thieves scrambling for clean underwear.

Sorry it took so long to get to this one. Been a bit busy, but I'm here now and this is adorable!

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Panther!Blake: (watching the cubs try to sneak through the foliage at night)

Stripe: (bumbling around and crashing through the leaves) Darn it!

Spot: (doing better than Stripe, but still making some noise) Hehe! You're so clumsy, Stripe.

Stripe: Hey! I may be clumsy, but I have a better roar than you do!

Panther!Blake: (rolls her eyes amusingly from her hiding place amongst the shadows) Cubs. I swear. (barely notices a shadow skulking towards Stripe)

Black: (creeps through the brush like a ninja cat and pounces on Stripe) Rawr!

Stripe: (jumps) HOLY SHRIMP!!!!

Black: Hahahahahaha!

Panther!Blake: Not bad. But you still have a ways to go.

Black: You aren't that great at stalking, Ma. Pa catches you sometimes.

Stripe & Spot: Ooooooooh!

Panther!Blake: Because I let her. (notices one of the overnight security wandering the walkway) Watch and learn.

Cubs: (watch with bated breath as a shadow barely flits through the enclosure)

Security Guard: (leisurely strolling through the zoo) Man, sure is quiet here.

Panther!Blake: (basically becomes one with the shadows as she stalks the guard)

Security Guard: (oblivious)

Panther!Blake: (creeps up to the guard until she's practically touching his pant leg)

Security Guard: (stops) .........Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in dang-

Panther!Blake: (roars)

Security Guard: (screams like a child and scrambles away, tripping over his own two feet, running into benches and trash cans, and leaving behind a trail of urine behind him)

Panther!Blake: (stealths back to the enclosure and manifests from the shadows) You were saying?

Cubs: (bow down) We're not worthy!